Week 39 . . . . this is the end my friend

I've made it to week 39. As I look back at this experience (and I know, I have another HUGE experience to go through soon), I'm not really thrilled with the pregnancy experience. The middle was fine, except that I couldn't lift things or do things like I was used to (very frustrating). This ending has been awful! How can a tiny little baby pinpoint the exact nerve that leaves me basically debilitated? I'm ready for Monday! In fact, I'm ready for before Monday. I have been trying to "encourage" labor on my own these last few days. I don't think it's working. I feel kind of crampy, but no real "pain". The baby sure did move a lot last night though! I'm not sure where it thought it was going, but it started to get ridiculous! And that does hurt after a while, the kicking and shifting.

Matt is very excited about having this child out and into the world and that warms my heart more than anyone will ever know. He's never held a real newborn (he held his niece at 1 month) and he's never changed a diaper (except for his sister's Cabbage Patch Kid, which I'm pretty sure doesn't count because they don't have failing arms and legs and can't cry or pee on you during the process). I'm very excited to see how he interacts with his child!

This morning a Quaker friend of mine e-mailed me a poem she found that really sums up how I feel about this child. It's called The Alien by Greg Delanty. This is how I feel now and how I've felt throughout this pregnancy. Just who are you alien baby? What do you look like? Will you love me? I guess all answers will be reveled on Monday.

Keep me in your thoughts, prayers, or in the Light (whichever religious persuasion you may have) on Monday. I read a statistic that when women are given pitocin to induce labor, they are more likely to end up having a cesarean operation. I've been cut open before (for a good cause - I love you Eugene!), but don't really want to be again. I'd like for my child to enter the world the way the majority of babies do - the journey through the tunnel of warm and dark into the bright cold lights of the world and ultimately into my loving arms. I'm feeling very solemn and poetic today for some reason. This is the end my friend.

Below is the poem I referred to earlier (and I don't want to hear anything from my fellow Media Specialists about copyright! I cited the source). And now I'm off to spend one of the last days with my wonderful husband together as a couple before we become a family. Cheers!

The Alien

I'm back again scrutinizing the Milky Way
of your ultrasound, scanning the dark
matter, the nothingness, that now the heads say
is chockablock with quarks & squarks,
gravitons & gravitini, photons & photinos. Our sprout,

who art there inside the spacecraft
of your ma, the time capsule of this printout,
hurling & whirling towards us, it's all daft
on this earth. Our alien who art in the heavens,
our Martian, our little green man, we're anxious

to make contact, to ask questions
about the heavendom you hail from, to discuss
the whole shebang of the beginning & end,
the pre–big bang untime before you forget the why
and lie of thy first place. And, our friend,

to say Welcome, that we mean no harm, we'd die
for you even, that we pray you're not here
to subdue us, that we'd put away
our ray guns, missiles, attitude and share
our world with you, little big head, if only you stay.

"The Alien" by Greg Delanty, from The Ship of Birth. © Louisiana State University Press, 2007.